“The Mill” exists to glorify God through bringing people together around shared experience, interaction and discovery to foster a community whose living out and application of Kingdom values results in multiplying vision and motivation to creatively impact our world with the transformative power of the Gospel.

We see our presence at The Mill as providing a place of rest and retreat, nourishment to the soul and spirit: a time and place for reflection, feeding the spirit, communing with God and his creatures through a variety of avenues: music, the arts, informal and structured dialogue and interaction,  connection to community and the world.

The unique setting of The Mill makes it a superb place to visit… or stay. Our prayer is that God will use this place, ourselves, and our partners to bring people together… around food, ideas, work, humanities, conversation, understanding and addressing of basic human needs. Our current vision is to be able to facilitate event-based interactions as well as provide for 8-12 persons to be ongoing (or rotating) residents of The Mill Community.

Our consistent focus at The Mill is on fostering community – not controlled or managed, but fostered and facilitated. Doing so, we are drawing on the significance of this place as a place of restoration in our own lives and families, our extensive ministry and mission experience in multiple cultures and languages, and a wealth of local culture and history to provide the “raw material” for building a sense of community.

Our prayer is that those who visit and stay with us will be able to find or recover a healthy rhythm of life in community, that emphasizes the contributions of each individual, to participate in a community committed to stewardship, where relationships, fresh encounters, knowledge, experience, and new perspectives are valued and shared. We envision a wide variety of people interacting in an atmosphere that respects and nurtures diversity, seeing it as a source of inspiration. Ideally, The Mill will be a place where people “belong,” both in their concrete experience here, as well as to the community tied to it. We pray that visitors and residents will gain a fresh appreciation of God’s design and purpose in our lives and world… and see the need to be trusting in God (not systems, structures, or status).

Our goal for The Mill community is that we will, together, be living out, modeling, and inviting others to adopt the values that underlie the community: most significantly the “Kingdom values” drawn from a life committed to following Christ. We seek to provide a genuine alternative form of community that is recognizable by its values. We value and seek the sustainability of our home, relationships, and community. We value being ambassadors for God, bringing honor to Him in all we do. We value a stronger connection to the good earth which he has entrusted to us, and finding ways to see how our labor connects to the land on which we live. This demands that we value conservation and preservation of the good things of creation, and leads us to affirm the enjoyment of simplicity. We value doing more with less, and finding contentment in the process. We value and are committed to the “common good.”

Our prayer is that participation in the life of The Mill community may lead people to revisit their life priorities, taking a fresh new look at “what is really needful.” We desire that The Mill would be experienced as a place where one “begins to see things for what they really are.”

Our vision for The Mill is that participation in its unique opportunities would result in people renewing their vision and motivation to make an impact in their world. We pray that people will be equipped to have a new or deeper impact in their own (or other) settings as a result of their experience. We pray for the values, insight, and appreciation of community to be contagious, that people will become more involved in outreach. We don’t want “more of the same” of what the world offers, but people who are equipped and empowered to present a challenge to lifestyles of isolation, acquisitiveness, busy-ness, exploitation, and complicity. We pray that those who share life with us will become more resourceful, less passive and more inspired, having learned what was within them or around them that God has provided.

For further information, contact Jim and Liz Baker: jim.baker@efca.org 434-993-2769

If you would like to contribute to the Bakers’ ministry fund, click here for secure online giving.